Saturday, July 19, 2014

Celebrate Little Victories - Planes, Taxis, and RWA in NYC

A Cowboy in Times Square

I set aside Saturday to celebrate little victories. This feature is inspired by Mary Gramlich, The Reading Review. We met at RT/06 in Daytona and roomed together since then at several conventions. Mary is a prolific reader of all genres and posted online reviews long before book blogging exploded. She encouraged me to create this blog when I moved to Hawaii. We chat once a week to celebrate the little victories. Today Mary is my guest with a nostalgic look out our last adventure together in 2011 ....

Planes, Taxis, and RWA in NYC

Before my sons grew up, got married, and started giving me grandsons, I had money to spend on trips instead of toys. I love my grandsons and every moment that I spend with them is a gift so great it cannot ever be duplicated. But I do miss those trips I used to take with Kim because we had such an amazing time together.

The year we went to RWA in New York City is the one that sticks out in my mind as a full blown adventure. Kim and I flew from different cities to Baltimore to connect on the same flight to NYC. We were feeling no pain as the flight departed for LaGuardia as the rosary beads were out and the lovely relaxing pill we both take had kicked in. After getting off the plane and riding down the escalator to baggage claim, we spotted a limo driver holding up a sign for “ROBYN DeHART”. This prompted me to look at Kim and say “If I had known she was going to be so famous I would have spent more time on my reviews of her books”.

(Mary's reviews are spot on whether the author is famous or not).

We start off by getting into an unofficial car service with another woman who wanted to share the ride. The driver was an EMT who mastered warp speed down a four lane highway feeding into a tunnel. He turned on his siren to get us ahead of the crowd. The adventure continued in Manhattan when the woman riding with us jumped out of the taxi, threw money at the driver, and ran off like the FBI was after her.

(I think this should be a scene in a contemporary romance).

Our hotel was located on Times Square, which hosted the Transformers III World Premier. I spotted Bumblebee up close and personal. During the book fair, Roxanne St. Claire yelled my name to come see her. We dined with Eileen Dreyer. We followed Delilah Marvelle through Hell's Kitchen for a late night donut run. The next day, we enjoyed breakfast with Katie Lane, lunch with Tracy Anne Warren, and drinks with Kat and Larry Martin. I soaked up NYC's atmosphere by accompanying Kim on her many trips to the post office; one included me running into the hot dog vendor that left mustard on my shirt. Kim pulled me back out of traffic several times so the taxis didn't run me over. And this was only Day 2 of our week at RWA in NYC.

Bumblebee from Transformers

Mahalo, Mary, for recounting our "Lucy and Ethel" moments. If only I had you to entertain me on my trip home to Hawaii (as I hate flying, especially over the ocean). I will miss you at RWA in San Antonio but I carry your spirit (and that of Bumblebee) with me to next week's RWA Annual Conference in San Antonio.

Can you share a wacky travel story? One randomly selected commenter wins a book choice from my convention stash. Comments are open through Sunday, July 27, 10 pm in Baltimore. I'll post the winner on Monday, July 28, should I recover from RWA.

12 comments:

Lots of stories - we traveled when we could for the 15 yrs. before we had children. The time my horse fell while climbing down a mountain in Haiti, the taxi driver in Paris who took our group to a discotheque that turned out to be a whorehouse and they charged out $150 per bottle of wine (apparently the girl came with it lol), that was the trip they lost my husband's luggage for 3 days and the last night in England we went to a dinner in a castle and they kept filling our glasses with mead and wine and that was the worst trip home for me ever and I lost my contact so I couldn't even see lol - just a few of our mishaps!

I do remember one time, we played a CD for our kids and asked them if the language was OK. They assured us it was until one song wasn't. They assured us it was just the one time. However, it happened again and the CD went flying out the window.

When my nephew was four, I took the train to Illinois to pick him up for a week long summer visit. He loved trains and the tracks went right in front of his house, so I thought it would be an easy, fun trip. Wrong. Before I made it to my destination the train had mechanical problems and I was trapped on it with no power (or A/C) for hours. They finally has us get off and loaded us into busses to transport us to our destination. I figured they'd have everything fixed by the next day when I was to take my nephew, but we were bussed north to another train and didn't go past his home. Other than that the trip was unremarkable. When I returned him to my sister's the next week I drove. I wasn't chancing the train again. ;)

About 15 years ago my son and I were traveling west through Texas when the wind and visibility (dirt and sand in the air) got so bad that we had to stop for the day. A trucker at the hotel told us it was good that we stopped as a semi had been blown off the road up ahead of us. Two weeks later as we were traveling toward home (east). The highway was all torn up with baracades all over the place winding us back and forth. I had a hard time following all the detours as we were driving past Oklahoma City. Then my son shouted..."OMG...Look at that!" We were driving past the area that a Twister had plowed right through the city! This was the year that so many twisters were ripping through the west and we were doing our sight-seeing vacation and not hearing many news reports until we got home!! Exciting vacation!

My wackiest travel story was the first time my husband and I flew. It happened in the airport when I accidentally went into the men's bathroom and a man and a little boy came in while I was in my stall. Luckily I didn't run into anyone while I was in there. Lol!